_Proceedings of the convention._--The Lords spiritual and temporal, to the number of about ninety, and an assembly of all who had sat in any of King Charles's parliaments, with the lord mayor and fifty of the common council, requested the Prince of Orange to take upon him the administration after the king's second flight, and to issue writs for a convention in the usual manner.[143] This was on the 26th of December; and the convention met on the 22nd of January. Their first care was to address the prince to take the administration of affairs and disposal of the revenue into his hands, in order to give a kind of parliamentary sanction to the power he already exercised. On the 28th of January the Commons, after a debate in which the friends of the late king made but a faint opposition, came to their great vote: That King James II., having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of this kingdom, by breaking the original contract between king and people, and by the advice of jesuits and other wicked persons having violated the fundamental laws, and having withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, has abdicated the government, and that the throne is thereby vacant. They resolved unanimously the next day, that it hath been found by experience inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this protestant kingdom to be governed by a popish prince.[144] This vote was a remarkable triumph of the whig party, who had contended for the exclusion bill; and, on account of that endeavour to establish a principle which no one was now found to controvert, had been subjected to all the insults and reproaches of the opposite faction. The Lords agreed with equal unanimity to this vote; which, though it was expressed only as an abstract proposition, led by a practical inference to the whole change that the whigs had in view. But upon the former resolution several important divisions took place. The first question put, in order to save a nominal allegiance to the late king, was, whether a regency with the administration of regal power under the style of King James II. during the life of the said King James, be the best and safest way to preserve the protestant religion and the laws of this kingdom? This was supported both by those peers who really meant to exclude the king from the enjoyment of power, such as Nottingham, its great promoter, and by those who, like Clarendon, were anxious for his return upon terms of security for their religion and liberty. The motion was lost by fifty-one to forty-nine; and this seems to have virtually decided, in the judgment of the house, that James had lost the throne.[145] The Lords then resolved that there was an original contract between the king and people, by fifty-five to forty-six; a position that seems rather too theoretical, yet necessary at that time, as denying the divine origin of monarchy, from which its absolute and indefeasible authority had been plausibly derived. They